I’ve always been kind of attracted to libertarianism. Not in the philosophical, well-read, intellectual sense. More in practical terms: I don’t think it’s any of the state’s business what I choose to stick in my veins or into another consenting adult. My biometric data is mine, not for them to treat as their own. I’ll [...]

(Or “the glorious day”, for any lurking Citizen Smith nostalgics.)
Paul Anderson raves about John Palmer’s presentation of “the left case for a yes vote in the French and Dutch referendums”. I’m not so sure.
Very briefly: the new elements of the constitutional treaty can be grouped under the headings of economic liberalisation, democratisation and institutional consolidation.

…specifically to Mongolia, where the International Herald Tribune finds a modern tragedy of the commons and offers some clues to the intriguing questions: whose horde was it anyway? And exactly how right wing was Genghis Khan?

Can’t really argue with that. This is the problem with this bloody constitution - there’s no vision behind it. There’s nothing to inspire interest, enthusiasm or loyalty - even among the faithful. For a project as ambtitious as the breaking down of barriers between the disparate, once war-ridden nations of an ancient continent, you’d think [...]

Andrew at Hold that Thought, a new blog, has drawn my attention to a polemical piece by German social theorist Jurgen Habermas , arguing for a left-wing “yes” vote in the French referendum. Habermas’ major contention is that
What is vaunted today as the “European social model” can only be defended if European political strength grows [...]

When is a war a ‘just war’? According to the classic definition, one of the key criteria is that war is not waged lightly: going to war has to be the ‘last resort’.
But it can be tricky to tell when you’ve reached the ‘last resort’, or the last of anything; you could easily jump too [...]

So now we have the final proof. New Labour is the greatest political party in history. Not content with three historic election victories, bringing democracy to the Middle East and the elevation of a priapic blind man to one of the great offices of state, New Labour can create worlds of their own imagining from [...]

According to the New York Times, the Afghan government is dragging its feet in eradicating poppy cultivation:

Britain has no written constitution.
This is one of the stock statements that pundits make on British political life. And, of course, like most stock statements, it isn’t really true. The vast majority of the British constitution is in fact written down, but in disparate documents, none of which are headed ‘warning: contains constitution’.
The Act of [...]

But first, some zen propaganda:
US military commanders are planning to pull back their troops from Iraq’s towns and cities and redeploy them in four giant bases in a strategy they say is a prelude to eventual withdrawal.
Eventually, we all withdraw. In the light of the eventual heat death of the universe, nothing is permanent. There [...]

As a nation, the past few years we Brits have become pretty adept at getting wound up by things that, in the grand scheme of things, are not really that important. The march against the Iraq War was one of the few instances in which the British people did get something right. But since then, [...]

Judging by the reaction to previous posts here at The Sharpener, you, dear readers, cannot get enough of this electoral reform stuff. So, in the greater service of interested humanity, I thought I would write on the subject (hereafter re-branded the Fair Vote) once more.
But this time I’ll try to answer a specific question: how [...]

(Regular readers of my own blog will be aware that I’m quite a Doctor Who fan. However, you can all rest assured that this post relates to Who only tangentially.)
In his 1995 article ‘What have we got to lose?‘ Douglas Adams made an interesting point about the BBC:
Television companies are not in the business of [...]

Now that the government has made it a priority to introduce the law against incitement to religious hatred, the time has come to consider whether Osama Bin Laden is right.
I don’t mean right in a blowback, arab-streety kind of way. I mean specifically and exactly right. I mean that his policies and actions, and those [...]